by Kristin Lenz
“I got you! Just hang and rest for a minute.”
Kaitlyn sat back in her harness and hung on the rope, her hands dangling by her sides, twirling her wrists, fingers flexing, getting the blood flowing again. After a minute, she climbed back on and found a different foothold. I tightened the rope, giving her an extra boost, and she grabbed the bulge she was going for.
“That was scary,” she said, but her face glowed with triumph.
Nick began the pitch, climbing smoothly. We were surrounded by sandstone, high up on the cliff. These mountains were gentle swells compared to the fierceness of Mount Chimborazo. The sun radiated off the rocks and left shadows, some hills brilliant with light, others doused in gray. Bits of scrub brush poked out of the rock, a few tiny purple flowers hid in the cracks. Manzanitas with their twisting branches and roots bulged out of sandy patches. In the distance, Yucca plants bloomed with tall spires of white flowers. Thoreau’s words floated across my eyes. “Learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of nature affords.”
“Faaallliiing!”
I lurched forward, sliding toward the edge of the ledge, my feet scrambling for leverage, dust and pebbles tumbling into space. Kaitlyn yelped and grabbed my harness. My mind flashed to the steep, icy slopes of Mount Chimborazo. The seam of snow splitting as the avalanche ripped Max apart from my parents, threatening to pull them after him.
The anchor jerked my harness backward, knocking the air out of my belly with a grunt. My heart thundered.
“It’s okay,” I gasped. “We’re all clipped to the bolts. Nick?”
Kaitlyn crept next to me and peered over the edge, her hands covering her mouth. Nick swung on the rope and banged into the rock.
“Shit!”
I yelled down, “You okay?”
“Motherfucker!” Blood dripped down his leg.
“Do you need me to climb down to you?” I called.
Nick growled and kicked at the rock as he dangled on the rope. Kaitlyn didn’t know how to belay; I’d have to tie myself off and climb down. He didn’t look very injured, but the situation could change drastically if his habit of passing out at the sight of blood took hold. Just don’t look down at your leg, Nick.
Nick climbed back on the rock. That’s right, just keep going, don’t look down. I pulled the rope extra tight just like I did for Kaitlyn, giving Nick a boost.
“Hey! I don’t need any short-roping,” he snapped.
“Okay,” I said, relaxing the rope and dropping him a couple inches. “Here if you need it.”
“Fuckin’ pisser,” he muttered, scrambling back on the wall. He pulled and pushed and hauled himself up to the ledge awkwardly, using raw strength, no finesse. But he was there.
Kaitlyn dug out the first-aid kit and tended to the gash on Nick’s knee. Nick’s eyes were closed as he rested the back of his head against the rock.
“Nice war wound,” I said, pushing the fear out of my voice.
“That’s nothing,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “Check this out.” He extended his hand, palm out.
“Ooh, nice flapper.” I winced. “We’ll tape it up. Good thing we’re almost done.”
“I’m done now,” he said.
Nick was right. We’d gone far enough. His fall was a reminder of how quickly things can change on a mountain, even a small one like this, how one misstep can put everyone in danger.
Kaitlyn finished cleaning and taping Nick’s knee. She stood and studied my face for a minute as if reading my hesitation. I didn’t say anything.
She turned back to Nick. “I’m going with Cara. You can do it. We’re almost there. You have to go with me.”
Nick opened his eyes, connecting with Kaitlyn’s gaze. “Fine, fine, make me suffer,” he said.
“Drama goth.” Kaitlyn grinned and pulled out the tape for Nick’s wounded hand.
The last pitch was an easy, sloping scramble again, leading up to the top of the mountain. Energy poured back into my tired muscles with each final reach and step.
“There’s plenty of room to walk around, but stay anchored in,” I told them. “I don’t want anyone sliding off on my watch.” My tone was light, but I felt the weight of responsibility for their safety.
We stood on the crest of the mountain, the wind whipping our hair and rustling our jackets. Blue, blue sky with puffs of clouds pulled apart like cotton candy.
“Wow,” Kaitlyn said. “You can see the ocean. It’s so, so, huge out there. Everything.”
That was what always struck me too. The vastness of it all, our world, so much land, stretching for thousands of miles in all directions. Golden rolling hills dotted with chaparral. Sandstone cliffs, swooping valleys. A winding serpent river. The pencil line of a distant road. A cluster of squares, a miniature town. Rippling green ridges like a sleeping dragon. The glimmer of the Pacific Ocean.
“Those words we always use—awesome, wonderful—this makes you understand what they really mean,” Kaitlyn said.
“It’s different climbing out here than in the gym,” Nick said. “It’s like … primitive, primal.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “It’s like you, Cara. Quiet on the outside, but inside there’s a wildness. Indiana She-Jones. You can just feel it out here.”
I smiled. This is why my parents and Uncle Max climbed. Not to conquer the mountain, but to become the mountain. To feel its power, absorb its strength. To recognize the vastness of the world around us and how insignificant we really are. To soak up the beauty of it all. The enchantment. They had taught me this. And I could feel it, in my body, in the air I breathed. It was the only way to truly feel alive.
Kaitlyn and Nick pulled out their phones and squeezed together for a selfie. They snapped pictures of the panoramic view, but it just wasn’t possible to capture the depth of this scenery.
I wandered a few steps away and sat down near the edge of the ridge. The sun had warmed the rock, but the chilly wind needled my skin. I hunched down into my jacket and rubbed my hands together. The wind howled around my ears, as if it wanted to take me, to fling me right off the edge of the mountain.
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
I remembered the breeze dancing across my face at the top of the competition wall in Ecuador, gazing out toward Mount Chimborazo, sending a wish to my parents on the waves of the wind.
Buena suerte, Mom and Dad. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I hope the mountains heal you.
Maybe they were being selfish, not letting anything stand in their way, not even me. But in Michigan, with my grandparents, with Kaitlyn, I had discovered another life, another way to live. And maybe that’s why my parents sent me. And maybe my mom understood that my grandparents had already lost too much. They had lost all of their babies, they had even lost my mother in a way. I was the only one left.
Kaitlyn and Nick crouched behind me.
“How can you sit so close to the edge?” Kaitlyn asked. “It freaks me out.”
“When I was a kid, I used to imagine myself jumping off the cliffs,” I said. “I’d take a running start, leap, and soar into the air like a bird.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Kaitlyn said.
I had confided that to Mom once, and she said she often had that same urge, even as an adult.
And Uncle Max, was it possible that was how he felt? With his adrenaline pumping, did he feel like he was flying, soaring along with the avalanche? It was too painful to think of it any other way.
Annie Dillard had written, I could very calmly go wild.
“My parents have a cottage up north on Lake Michigan,” Nick said. “This is how I feel when I’m there, standing at the edge of the water. It’s huge like the ocean, you can’t even see the other side.”
“You’re coming back to Michigan with us, aren’t you?” Kaitlyn said. I nodded. “For now.”
“What else is she gonna do, live out here
with the coyotes?” Nick said.
Kaitlyn swatted him, but smiled at me and said, “Indiana She-Jones.” Then, “What coyotes?”
I smiled back. “Don’t worry.”
How I wanted to hold on with my animal instinct like Annie Dillard’s weasel, to not let go. Hold on to the cabin, to the mountains, to my wilderness, to my wildness. We can live any way we want. We can hold on and let go at the same time.
My fingers swirled the sand in the rocky ridges and pried loose chunks of stone. I felt their irregular edges, smooth, angular, rounded, sharp, then handed one each to Kaitlyn and Nick. We stood and took one last look, drinking in the dangerous beauty.
I pulled my arm back, clutching the stone like a baseball. My body twisted and heaved the chunk of rock, sending it sailing over the edge into the vastness.
Nick wound up like a pitcher and followed, releasing his rock with a grunt.
“I’m keeping mine,” Kaitlyn said, tucking her stone into her pocket.
I nodded. “Ready for some rappelling?”
“What?” Kaitlyn said.
“How did you think we were getting back down?” I grinned.
PART IV: HOME
I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live.
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden
56
I followed Grandma around the yard, admiring the daffodils and crocuses and hyacinth that had sprung to life. She pointed to a cluster of green stalks surrounding the maple tree. “Those are tulips, they’ll bloom next.”
I joined Grandpa as he poked along the edge of the backyard, pulling up the strangling vines of ivy, searching for spring wildflowers.
“There’s the trillium. And here’s the wild columbine and geranium shooting up. No morels here.” He nudged the spongy soil with his foot and sneezed. Then sneezed again and again.
“Bless you!” I backed away.
Grandma shared her tentative gardening plans: strawberries, cherry tomatoes, basil. It was as if she’d been hibernating for the past year, and now she was venturing out, step by step.
We planted petunias in the flower boxes and pots on the porch. I left Grandma to dress the goose in her flowered spring dress and bonnet, while I went in to get ready for Tom.
I peeked at Grandma’s angel figurines inside their glass case. Kaitlyn was right, this was a curio case of memories. Five babies. Three had died before they were born, the fourth one grew up to become my mom, and I was baby number five. I smiled at the thought of a rock-climbing angel.
There was still a mystery left to solve, and while Grandma and Grandpa were busy outside, I searched for scraps of paper that Grandpa had written on. A grocery list, a phone message. I never paid much attention to his handwriting. His reading glasses rested on the Sunday crossword puzzle in the Detroit Free Press. Just as I suspected—perfectly neat, block printing, in black pen. An engineer’s handwriting, like Tom had said. Grandpa had access to my notebooks and textbooks, and he knew about my past climbing life. But why?
“You found me out, huh?” Grandpa stood in the doorway, grinning. He held a shoe box at his side.
“The handwriting matches,” I said. “Time to fess up.”
“Confession, Grandma and I saw two of the other notes someone had sent you. We weren’t spying, I promise, one was out in the open when Grandma gathered up your dirty clothes, and one was in your jeans pocket. You know, she usually checks before she tosses pants in the washer. Then we overheard you talking to Kaitlyn about it on the phone. And I was talking to Jake at the climbing gym one day when I picked you up, and the kid confessed everything to me. But swore me to secrecy. Your grandma loves a good mystery. You’ve seen all her Agatha Christies in here.”
“Those are Grandma’s? I thought they were Mom’s. I’ve never seen Grandma read anything but magazines.”
“You’re right. That’s one of the things that changed when she stopped going out. She didn’t go to the library for books anymore. Maybe that will start to change now. And your mom read all those Agatha Christies too, that’s why they’re in here now.”
“So your Grandma loves mysteries, and she thought we could add to your mysterious notes, make it even more challenging to solve.”
“It was Grandma’s idea?”
“She remembered the Mystery of the Orient Express, where every passenger is a suspect and has a secret. In your case, there’d be so many different people involved with the notes, it’d be hard to sort out.” Grandpa looked a little sheepish. “I guess we get a little bored staying home all day, especially cooped up all winter.”
“But how’d you know I had gone to all those places? You even knew the names of the climbing routes.”
“I wanted to remind you of your climbing history and special times with your parents.” He held out the shoe box to me, and I took it. “I’ve been saving this for you, adding to it every year. Truth be told, I’ve always been afraid something would happen to your parents. I’m glad I’m not giving you the box in those circumstances.”
He smiled and turned to go. “Have fun with Tom,” he called.
I opened the lid of the box. It was stuffed full of letters. Letters on notebook paper, stationary, e-mail printouts. Letters from my mom, telling Grandma and Grandpa all about me, for years and years.
I closed the box and sighed. Wow. Michigan’s a mystery novel. I’d return to the letters later, when I could savor them. They would last me a long time.
My big box of books and magazines was back in my closet. I opened the flaps and reached inside, my hands brushing something soft. I pulled out red yarn, and kept pulling and pulling—a scarf. I gathered it into a ball, my fingers twined in the loops, and held it under my chin. Kaitlyn. She’d crocheted me a going-away gift. Or was it a coming-home present? I hung it around my neck and reached back into the box.
I pulled out Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver and stacked them next to Thoreau on my desk. Maybe I’d take Grandpa up on his offer to build me a bookcase. We could do it together.
I sat on the front porch waiting for Tom. I drank in the blue, blue sky and remembered a moment with Mom and Dad when I was younger. We sat at the base of a cliff, resting after a climb. The sky was blue like today with trailing wisps of clouds. My dad had picked up a stick and was slowly waving it in the air in twirls and figure eights.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m stirring the sky.”
That’s exactly what it looked like. He was stirring the clouds, blending and swirling them into the blue.
“It’s magic,” Mom had said.
Thoreau wrote, Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. Before, I thought Thoreau was talking about getting lost in nature, leaving the busy world behind and discovering yourself out in the woods. But now I wonder if he meant more than that. Last year, I lost the only world I had ever known—life with my parents in the mountains. We had lost the world that held Uncle Max. And now, we were finding our way in a new world.
Grandma and Grandpa strolled across the yard, their shadows trailing behind them. I used to play a game with Dad when I was little, trying to fit inside his shadow as we walked. I liked to be hidden, safely absorbed by his shadow, then stick out an arm, wiggle my fingers, kick a foot. I remembered how free I felt competing in Ecuador, on my own, outside of my parents’ shadow.
I felt it strongly now, a stab in my ribs; I had to keep climbing. Somehow, my climbing would keep them going too. It seemed interconnected. I couldn’t just sit home and wait. It was time for me to call Coach Mel.
A horn honked, and I looked up to see Kaitlyn and Nick waving from Kaitlyn’s beast of a car. I trotted down the walk.
“We’re going to work, but wanted to show you my new do.” Kaitlyn tossed her head from side to side and flipped her hair. “What do you think?”
Her
hair had been cut to just above her shoulders and streaked maroon-red.
“I love it!”
“And she came up with a new name to go with the hair,” Nick said.
Kaitlyn opened her jean jacket, revealing a black T-shirt with a picture of a silver-whiskered grinning cat.
“Kat!” she said with a squeal. “That’s my new nickname.”
“I get it. I love it!”
“And it’s even better because her mom got a dog,” Nick said.
“Not a chocolate Lab named Cocoa?” I said.
Kaitlyn scrunched up her nose. “It’s a Chihuahua mixed with a Dachshund. Who does that?”
Nick couldn’t hold back his laughter. “It’s a Chiweenie!”
I slapped my hand over my gaping mouth.
“It’s a real thing!” Kaitlyn said. “That’s what they’re actually called.” She shook her head.
Another horn beeped behind us. Tom pulled up in his sun-faded silver Escort wagon.
“What are you and Tom doing?” Kaitlyn asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a sunny day surprise.”
“I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly,” Nick recited with grandiose gestures like he was on stage.
“Ha!” I pointed my finger at him. “You’ve been reading Thoreau!” Nick crossed his eyes. “Someday I’ll write my own manifesto, in plain, simple, language.”
Kaitlyn and Nick leaned out the window and yelled hi to Tom. “We gotta go. Have fun.”
“Bye Kat!” I said and waved.
Tom hopped out of the car and met me on the sidewalk. He held out a card in his hand. “Ta-da! I’ve got my license, whoop-de-do!” And he did a hip swiveling, jump shot victory dance.
I laughed and studied the picture. “Nice mug shot.”
Grandma and Grandpa came around from the backyard, the knees of their pants stained with dirt.
“Nice car,” Grandpa said.
“Ha-ha. I wish,” Tom said.
Grandpa chuckled. “Your time will come. You’ve checked this one out? The tires, oil, gassed up?”
